“I had a white suit made in 1960, started wearing it in January – and found it annoyed people tremendously. It’s kind of a harmless form of aggression.” Tom Wolfe

The Talented One

Barry’s compulsion to play the tough guy with friends (Israel and Britain) and the pussycat with murderous enemies (Iran and the Arabs) is disturbing and dangerous, though entirely predictable given his life-long closeness to the post-60’s, anti-American left.

The latest is his contrived tongue-lashing of Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai. Perhaps Karzai is a louse, but he’s obviously better than all the other louses available. I mean we’re talking here about Afghanistan: a “country” that has always made the Wild West look like an English tea party. Yet, Barry is shocked! shocked! to find there is corruption in Afghanistan.

It’s useful to remember that we’re not there, primarily, on a humanitarian mission to save the Afghanis from the hell of returning to Taliban tyranny (as worthy a goal as that may be). We are there to prevent Afghanistan from becoming, once again, a terrorist squat from which Al Qaeda can launch devastating attacks on us.

President Obama isn’t faring too well at converting enemies to friends, but he does seem to have a talent for turning friends into enemies. The latest spectacle is the all-too-public and counterproductive war of words between the White House and our putative ally, Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The only winner so far in this spat is the Taliban…

Coming on the heels of the U.S. public chastisement of Israel’s government, the larger concern over the Karzai episode is what it reveals about Mr. Obama’s diplomatic frame of mind. With adversaries, he is willing to show inordinate patience, to the point of muffling his objections when opposition blood ran in the streets of Tehran. With allies, on the other hand, the President is unforgiving and insists they follow his lead or face his public wrath. The result will be that our foes fear us less, and that we have fewer friends.